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by orphan_account



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: I just really wanted to stay with goatmama ok, no romance probably, probably gonna call this AU Underhome, that a lame name or what
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-11
Updated: 2015-12-22
Packaged: 2018-05-06 02:08:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5398892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU where Frisk decides to stay</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Beginnings

“If you truly wish to leave the ruins, I will not stop you.”

“However, when you leave…”

“Please do not come back.”

“I hope you understand.”

Toriel let out a choked sob as she hugged the fallen child. She had failed to protect yet another child, and this one hadn’t even lifted a finger to harm her.Asgore was going to tear this innocent one to-

The child hasn’t let go of her yet.

“Is there something wrong?” She asked softly. The child looked up at her, determination burning in their eyes.

“Destroying the only exit…would be bad.” Toriel could barely make out the child’s voice, “But I...I don’t want to leave the ruins, I want to stay with you.” They sniffled and buried their face in Toriel’s robe. Toriel gently stroked the child hair and comforted them while they cried. She could barely contain the smile on her face; she had finally saved one of the children! She would have to figure out a curriculum, and introduce them to the monsters that lived here, and show them all the puzzles in the ruins, and-

Perhaps she was getting ahead of herself. She let out a happy sigh and kneeled down so that she was at eye level with the child.

“Forgive me innocent one, but in all this excitement, I forgot to ask for your name.”

 The child gave her a shaky smile, rubbing the tears from their eyes. “It’s Frisk.” They replied. Toriel stood up and grabbed the child’s hand.

“Well Frisk, I do believe there is some butterscotch-cinnamon pie left. Would you care to join me?”  She asked. Frisk nodded and clutched Toriel’s hand tight as they walked.

\--------------  1 week later ---------------

Frisk giggled as they threw the orange leaves into the air. Toriel had been worried about what they would do for entertainment, but Frisk had spent the last three days building the biggest leaf pile in the underground. So far it was twice their height, nearly as tall as Toriel. A froggit poked it head out of the pile and spit a few leaves at Frisk. They laughed and threw a handful back, starting a mini leaf war. Frisk was partially buried when Toriel called.

“Frisk? Dinner is ready now, you may-is that rustling?” Frisk giggled and shushed the froggit beside them.

 “No Miss Toriel, I’ll be right there.” Frisk tumbled out of their leaf grave and waved goodbye to the froggit. That one had been the nicest to Frisk since the very beginning, and on the walk back home Frisk decided that it needed a name. Jerry seemed like the perfect name, who didn’t like a guy named Jerry. Frisk nodded to themselves in approval as they came to the house and knocked on the door. Toriel opened the door and smiled.

“Why hello there,” Toriel bent down and picked a leaf out of Frisk’s hair, “little leaf monster.” They smiled back and slipped past her into the dining room. Frisk kicked their feet idly in a chair that was just a bit too high for them as Toriel brought our bread and some kind of spread Frisk had never bothered to ask the name of. Luckily for Frisk, Toriel had been joking about snail pie on that first day, and Frisks meals were almost the same as those on the surface, if not better cooked. However Toriel had insisted they eat their vegetables and mushrooms from the ruins were often hidden in foods one way or another. Frisk was fine with eating them, as long as Toriel let them stay with her. The two ate their meals in comfortable silence.

“Um..Miss Toriel?” Frisk asked, trying to keep their voice as quiet as possible.

“I’ve told you dear, just Toriel is fine.”  Toriel scolded gently, but her expression wasn’t threatening, as usual.

“It’s actually…about that.” Frisk played with their food nervously. Toriel waited patiently for them to continue.

“If it’s not too much trouble, and it doesn’t bother you, could I…call you mom?” Frisk flinched, already preparing themselves for her to say no.

Toriel stood up from her chair and hugged Frisk tightly. “Of course you can, my child.” Frisk breathed a sigh of relief and hugged back. Frisk swore they saw tears in Toriel’s eyes.

 

\-------------1 year later------------

“Hellooo failure”

“Go away Flowey.” Frisk tried to concentrate on the flowers they were watering, instead of the flower smirking at them.

“What? It’s true you know. Allllll the other Frisks left when they were supposed to, but it’s been what, a year? And you still haven’t left.” Flowey said, in that wonderful voice of his that made you want to punch him in the face.

“Don’t you have anything better to do?” Frisk sighed

“Nope. Not until you advance this timeline.” Flowey answered, bobbing his head from side to side.

“I’m not.going.out there.” Frisk hissed through gritted teeth.

“Why not? All you did was kill a couple-” Flowey was interrupted by a swish of fabrics as Frisk bolted out of the room, watering can abandoned. Frisk would have to get that back later, but right now all they wanted to do was prevent breaking down in front of Flowey.

They gripped the purple robe they had borrowed from Toriel, which had been tailored to fit someone of Frisk’s size but could never fit quite right, as they darted through the ruins looking for the one place that was deserted, since Frisk had explored every corner of the ruins within the first month. They rushed into a small room with a large mural of the Capital and huddled into the corner. Their breathing was rapid and uneven and their brain felt like it was full of static. After what felt like hours their heartbeat finally slowed.

 Why did Flowey always remind them? Why couldn’t he just let it go? Frisk was shaking, but no tears came.

 They forced themselves up and straightened out their hair. If they were to come home looking upset they would have to deal with another hour of avoiding Toriel’s well-meaning questions.

“Mom I’m home!” Frisk called out as they walked into the warm cottage. The faded yellow on the walls always cheered them up for some reason.

“In here my child!” Frisk saw Toriel’s head peek out of the kitchen, then disappear again. As they came into the kitchen they shrugged off their robes onto the floor, revealing their usual blue sweater and shorts, washed of course.

“Dear, would you like to try starting up the oven today?” Toriel asked, gesturing towards the black oven with wood stored inside.

“B-but I don’t know how!” They stuttered.

It was technically a lie. Frisk had learned how to conjure a flame a month ago, just a couple months after Toriel had decided that teaching Frisk magic would help to defend themselves better. However Frisk’s flames always seemed to spiral out of their control when they tried it, and they really didn’t want to burn down Toriel’s…their house.

“Oh nonsense I know you can! I believe in you.” Toriel placed both hands on Frisk’s shoulders, each paw nearly being the size of their head. “Just remember what I told you. First, imagine magic pooling into the palm of your hand.” Frisk took a deep breath and held out their arm. As they focused, they could almost feel a liquid in their palms.

“Now imagine that magic swirling around, almost like a whirlpool. It’s the fuel for your fire, so what your intention is for using the magic is your spark. Picture what you want to do clearly in your head, and-” Frisk’s hand caught on fire. Frisk watched the flames dance in their hand as Toriel clapped her hands excitedly.

“Well done my child! Now just direct your fireball into the oven.” This part always messed Frisk up. The fire would go in any direction but the one it was sent in, and they would have to put it out. Frisk focused on how if they did this correctly, Toriel might make one of her cinnamon-butterscotch pies again. They exhaled slowly, and the flame floated towards the oven door. Frisk could feel it trying to go off-course, but with one final push of will power the flame touched the logs and caught fire.

Frisk beamed and Toriel ruffled their hair, a look of pride in her eyes.

“Wonderful job Frisk! I think this calls for some pie for celebration. I’ll start working on it now.” Frisk squeezed Toriel tightly before going back to their room with a skip in their step. Over the course of the year Frisk had personalized their room to suit them better. Drawing covered an entire wall depicting just about everything, from froggits to Toriel to even a few pictures of Flowey. There was a vase of those mysterious yellow flowers by their bedside table, and a corner of their room was dedicated to odd things they had found in the ruins. So far all the corner had was a piece of ribbon and a super cool looking leaf, but Frisk was confident they would find more stuff. As Frisk climbed into their pile of quilts for a quick nap, they could smell a gentle scent of cinnamon wafting from the kitchen.

They could get used to this.

\-------20 years later--------

Frisk quietly hummed an up-beat tune as they walked down pink halls for the thousandth time, brushing their hand against the bricks as they walked.  It was the 20th anniversary of Frisk falling down, and it was treated as Frisk’s birthday, which they were more than fine with. Anything that pushed their previous life on the surface further away was a good thing. Frisk wondered what their present would be as the continued their way towards Chara’s grave.

“Good morning Flowey.” Frisk nodded to the flower crouched over in the corner. Flowey hissed at them but said nothing. Five years ago Flowey had realized that their tormenting no longer affected Frisk and he seemed to be taking the loss of his only form of entertainment very hard. Sometimes months would go by with Frisk never seeing Flowey, just for him to hurl insults at Frisk before disappearing again. The insults no longer affected them; after all they had heard all of them before.

 After around five years of living with Toriel, she sat them down one night and told them everything. She told Frisk about Asgore being her ex-husband, how she had lost two children in one night, and how every day when she visited that bed of flowers she hoped to see a human child in a green sweater. Frisk had a suspicion that Flowey was connected to Asriel, but Flowey had refused to say anything when asked. In turn, Frisk finally opened up to Toriel about what their life had been like with the humans, and why they had climbed Mt.Ebott.

to disappear.

There had been a lot of crying and hugging that night, but they had been much closer after it. Frisk hadn’t told Toriel everything, but she had picked up on most of the hints. She never raised her voice around Frisk because of that, which they were thankful for.

They passed through the purple gates that lead into the dark room just before the bed of flowers. They never understood why Toriel had never put lights in this area, since it seemed like a rather simple thing to do. Perhaps it was symbolic to her-

Frisk stopped abruptly and gasped. There, on the bed of flowers they had landed on so long ago, was a tiny red shoe.

Frisk rushed over to the flowers and examined the shoe carefully. It was definitely a child’s shoe, and the wear and tear showed that it had been worn for quite some time. They feared the worse, but they could see no body near them, and the hallway they had come out of was the only way in or out of this room. There was the fear that Flowey had taken the child, but he would have gone to Frisk immediately to brag about it. The only possible explanation was that a child had saved themselves from falling. In the twenty years Frisk had been down here they had never encountered another human, and thankfully that record was going to continue.

That also meant that the monsters still didn’t have their final soul. The monsters had tried to hide it, but Frisk could see how they longed to go to the surface, how they had listened with wide eyes as Frisk described the different winds and how sunlight felt on your skin to them. They were being denied of a basic right, and it broke Frisk’s heart a little more each day. Frisk had offered many times to seek out Asgore to give up their soul voluntarily, but Toriel had always looked so upset when they mentioned it, so the subject was dropped. Seeing the abandoned shoe filled Frisk with a power they hadn’t felt for a very long time, and as they strode back towards their home with the shoe clutched in hand, they were DETERMINED to convince Toriel to listen to them.


	2. Goodbyes

Frisk opened the door to home quietly, and hung their cloak on the coat rack. They admired on how much had changed since they had first come here. The house was still the same colour, but there were a lot more frames on the walls from Frisk’s teenage years where they had acquired a fascination with woodwork. The coatrack was made by Frisk as well, and while it was rough and un-even Toriel never got rid of it. There was a rug in the main hall now, purple and blue which Frisk and Toriel had made together. It was easy to tell the different from Toriel’s elegant embroidery and their shaky stiches. There were so many things that had changed in the house since Frisk had come, but if they started to list them they were going to start crying. Frisk sighed and walked into the living room. They could see Toriel sitting in her usual reading chair and as they approached she looked up from her book.

“Ah, Frisk! The butterscotch pie is in the oven, and…Frisk?” Toriel got up from her chair and gripped their shoulder. “Is something wrong?” Frisk let out a shaky breath and motioned for Toriel to sit down, and grabbed a chair for themselves. They sat across from Toriel, and her expression was so worried, as if she could already tell what Frisk was going to say.

“Toriel, today I found, I found a child’s shoe today. It had fallen from above.” Toriel raised her eyebrows but said nothing.

“That means that a child avoided falling into the underground. It also means that the child is going to warn everyone else about that hole, and no one else is going to fall down for at least another 50 years.” Frisk rubbed their face in their hands, and leaned in closer to Toriel.

“Mom, I need to go see Asgore.” Frisk watched as her nails dug deeper into the armrests, and her breathing quickened .

“Frisk. I have lost two children and I refuse to lose anot-”

“But I’m not a child anymore.” They cut her off, “I know it hasn’t seemed like that much time to you, but as a human I should have left the house ages ago. I need to go.”

Toriel rose abruptly and held Frisk tight. When she let go there were tears streaming down her face.

“I cannot give you my blessing so you can go off to your death.” She fought to keep her voice steady, “But, I am going to go check on the pie now. In 15 minutes I will come back into the living room.”  
Frisk nodded in understanding, and turned away towards their room. They wanted to hug her one last time, but if they did neither of them would let go. They didn’t have many personal items, so they just shoved a spare tunic and a couple of spider doughnuts into a backpack. As an afterthought they carefully placed a drawing of Toriel they had made when they were still a child into the pack. They had coloured the background orange since they had just finished painted Frisk’s room, with Toriel raising them onto her shoulders to reach the ceiling…this wasn’t helping.

At the stairs, they called out “I love you mom.” When they got no response, they slowly made their way down. Every step in that purple hallway was painful, and Frisk just wanted to rush back upstairs into Toriel’s arms. But that would be selfish with so many monsters begging for freedom when Frisk could give it to them so easily. The six children’s deaths would be in vain too, based on what little info they could gather about the six souls. Once Frisk died maybe their souls could finally be at peace. When they finally pushed open the heavy ruin doors, they were unsure if the tears in their eyes were from the cold or something else. They let their eyes wander across the mounds of snow and tall evergreens for the second time.

 

Truth be told, this wasn’t Frisk’s first reset. According to Flowey only going through the underground twice was odd, but Frisk refused to reset ever again. Not when their first run had been a complete train wreck.

It had started off well enough. Frisk was a more paranoid child back then and their encounter with Flowey certainly didn’t help matters.  They had clung to Toriel’s every word, and when they hugged her goodbye Frisk didn’t have a single EXP point. Snowdin didn’t go as well. They had nearly broken down into tears when Sans snuck up behind them, but once introductions were out of the way they decided that they liked Sans. Papyrus despite Sans constant assurance put Frisk on edge, but they certainly didn’t hate him. While making their way through Pap’s puzzles they encountered a small fluffy dog that in a instant became a huge threat. Fighting to slow down their heart rate, they pet the Greater Dog like they had done for all the other dogs. But when that didn’t work Frisks heart sunk. They didn’t know there was a longer process, how could they have known when they fled any battle that took more than two turns? They had just meant to get the dog injured enough so that in would flee in fear, but they underestimated the power of a human soul and in three quick slashes the puppy crumbled into dust. They shook in horror as the cheery voice in their head announced that they were now LV 2, accompanied by a short jingle. Darting their head left and right to see that no one was looking Frisk gently kicked snow over the dust and speed walked away.

 It was just a dog right? Sure they felt bad about killing it but it was still in self defense right? No one would call them a murderer for protecting themselves against a wild animal. Even when they finally got to Snowdin no one mentioned anything, so the dog couldn’t have been that important right? Frisk was disgusted by their though process,but it was the only thing keeping them from turning into a mess again, so they let the denial flow through their mind. Even after the easy “battle” with Papyrus no one had even mentioned a missing monster, so Frisk decided to put it out of their mind for a while as they ducked under a waterfall and ventured into the glowing caverns.

Then they started messing up again.

They learned that the monsters in Waterfall were more hard to please, and more difficult to run from. Overconfident from their fight with Papyrus they tried taking the quicker route by attacking monsters as quick as possible, confident they could control their strength. But more and more monsters dissolved into dust, and by the time Undyne confronted them at the entrance to Hotland they had a kill count of six. Six monsters who all had their own families, jobs, and dreams.  Surprisingly Undyne mentioned none of the deaths that happened in Waterfall, but Greater Dog which Frisk had succeeded in pushing the memory far back by now. How had she even found out about that?  Every word in her speech was spat at Frisk full of anger, as if they had killed her best friend. When the spears started flying they were relieved at how slow they were, until Undyne declared “warm-up was over” and started throwing at triple the speed. Frisk took hit after hit, but managed to avoid dying because they tried to flee on every turn in between healing.  When their soul finally turned back to red they shot off so fast that Undyne only managed to catch them once by the Hotland sign. She was obviously pissed off, but her moves were more predictable now and their soul turned red a lot sooner.

As they sprinted out of Waterfall they looked to their left to see Sans at his post SLEEPING! After he had promised to watch out for them! Frisk saw that Undyne was angry at Sans too, and used the opportunity to make it past the bridge. As they watched her collapse they were tempted to leave her behind, but they knew how much Papyrus cared for Undyne, and so they poured the water onto her head. When she left without saying a word they collapsed onto the ground, and laid there for about ten minutes to catch their breath and for their legs to stop hurting. They came to the realization that this was the last area before Asgore, and so far their attacks were pitiful at best. If every monster they met was going to attack them, they might as well start fighting back. They weren’t going to start hunting monsters down, simply preventing another monster from trying to take their soul ever again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aaaaa I'm sorry this took so long, I've had the chapter done for a while but had computer problems. Originally the flashback was going to be just one chapter but I've written 3000 words so far so I'm gonna split it into two.


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